Valve's virtual reality headset 'blows Oculus Rift away'

Gabe's been even busier than we realised

After weeks of speculating just what Valve had planned for VR, it turns out that Gabe and the team have in fact built their own headset - and apparently it's awesome.

According to a few lucky people who tried the headset at the Steam Dev Days, this is Valve's own hardware prototype and not the Oculus Rift.

Developer David Hensley was one of the few to try the headset, and while he admitted that he hadn't tried the recent Crystal Cove version of Oculus - just the original dev kit - he described the experience as a "generational leap forward."

"I'm a big fan of oculus, and will buy one," said Hensley in a tweet. "But the valve demo really blew me away. VR is going to be amazing."

He added: "I didn't get motion sickness. It was as an intense experience, though. The positional tracking goes a long way in fixing that issue."

He also said that Valve's headset achieved positional tracking by markers around the room, rather than dots on the headset as we saw with Crystal Cove, adding that he could even crouch. Hensley told TechRadar that the headset currently "looks like an oculus but without the plastic shell on it."

Leap forward

Reddit user Harabeck also took the headset for a spin, and said that even after half an hour there were no feelings of motion sickness.

Harabeck also said that a Valve rep confirmed the motion tracking on the headset was "a bit better" than on Crystal Cove.

Another tester, posting on TheSonicReblog, said: "Everyone who has tried it says it is mindblowing and blows crystal cove away"

Despite all this, Valve says it has no plans to release a consumer VR headset any time soon, instead focusing on helping Oculus Rift and others to get off the ground.